* . . . It was inconceivable
to us that someone would have been impersonating Oswald -- for
what purpose, you see?*

-- CIA's *John Scelso* to Michael Goldsmith of the
HSCA

In any event, when we consider the possibility
of a second Oswald or of Oswald's having been impersonated in
these southern Texas sightings in early October, we need to note
that whoever this was did not appear to have been behaving in
an especially suspicious or violent manner -- unlike a number
of multiple Oswald sightings in and around Dallas in the days
and weeks immediately preceding the assassination. Virtually all
of the sightings involving potential Oswalds and, for that matter,
potential Marinas discussed in this paper -- with the exception
of the Irving Furniture Mart's being confused for a gun shop --
do not appear to have been directly involved in the plot to implicate
Oswald as the lone nut assassin. In fact, the *Oswald* seen in
Alice and neighboring cities and towns appears to have been doing
nothing more than what he would have been expected to be doing
had he not already caught a bus back to Dallas: looking for a
job. So it is important to recognize that the Oswald *family*
sightings appear to be in a second category of possible attempts
to impersonate Oswald which may NOT be directly related to the
assassination.

A third type of Oswald impersonation efforts dates back as
far as 1961, when Oswald was in the Soviet Union and his identity
was being *sheep-dipped* in absentia in the United States. We
know that for whatever reason, someone tried to link Oswald's
name with the purchase trucks from a New Orleans Ford dealer on
behalf of an anti-Castro group, the Friends of Democratic Cuba,
prior to the Bay of Pigs in early 1961. (46) We also know that
a former Dallas radio station executive, Ray Carnay, told the
FBI three days after the assassination that he had been contacted
repeatedly by Oswald in Dallas during the summer of 1961 -- both
in person and on the telephone -- and that this particular Oswald,
a self-described Castro sympathizer, had tried to convince him
to cease and desist anti-Castro activities and to turn over a
list of names of pilots seeking to be involved in a post Bay-of-Pigs
invasion of Cuba. The real Oswald, of course, supposedly was working
at a radio factory in Minsk at the time. (47)

With the release of primary-source documents pursuant to the
1992 law, the evidence that Oswald may in fact have been impersonated
over a period of years for a variety of reasons and in a number
of locations just keeps piling up. For example, one release from
*96 which provides additional fodder for proof of imposture in
Mexico City is a November 27, 1963, memo from Winston Scott to
Legal Attache Clark D. Anderson which says that the final one
in a series of phone calls to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City
regarding Oswald's visa request came from a man who was suspected
NOT to be Oswald because of the broken Spanish and English spoken
(rather than Russian). The call also came in at 1539 hours on
October 3rd -- after Oswald is supposed to have been back in Dallas.
(48)

Each one of the expanding number of categories of possible
Oswald impersonation efforts points to new layers of mystery and
complexity surrounding Oswald and his identity. (Hoover, of course,
was concerned as far back as 1960 about the possibility of an
impostor's using Oswald's birth certificate.) And more recently,
some of John Armstrong's fascinating and disturbing work seems
to suggest at least two different historical paper trails for
both Oswald and his mother dating back as far as 1948! (49)) As
additional documents continue to be declassified and analyzed,
much more remains to be developed with respect the number and
type of categories into which the Oswald sightings may be disaggregated.
It is my belief that these categories are indicative of deep intelligence
connections, only some of which may relate directly to the assassination.

New Orleans - Mexico City - Dallas?

Finally, I think that the following should be considered when
attempting to evaluate that part of the official dogma which holds
that the same the man gunned down by Ruby in Dallas on November
24 is also the same man who supposedly leaves New Orleans, rides
a bus to Mexico City, visits both embassies, and hops a bus back
to Dallas before surfacing on October 3.

The FBI and the Warren Commission had an exceedingly difficult
time pinning down the initial leg of Oswald's bus trip back from
Mexico City until Marina supposedly stumbled across a treasure
trove of evidence in AUGUST of 1964 (!) concerning her late husband's
alleged activities and travels. (50)

As mentioned earlier, Mexican immigration records relating
to the cancellation of his tourist permit at Nuevo Laredo on
October 3, indicate that his method of travel was in an auto
(and that his destination was New Orleans, not Dallas).

In wondering what possible REASON the man going to Mexico
City could have had to stop off in Alice, Texas of all places
-- either prior to or perhaps even in lieu of a return trip to
Dallas -- I have found a potential explanation. For whatever
it is worth, one FBI document I have located describes Oswald's
peripatetic seat-mate on the bus down to Mexico City, everyone's
favorite itinerant preacher Albert Osborne (a.k.a. John Howard
Bowen), as a "frequent visitor" to the home of the
Reverend Joe Amarine of the Southern Baptist Church in "of
all places" Alice, Texas. (51)

"There certainly
were a lot of reasons why someone might want to impersonate Oswald.
Oswald could have been the patsy he claimed to be; someone may
have just been setting him up."

-- Goldsmith's response to "Scelso"

"Since there
is a possibility that an imposter is using Oswald's birth certificate,
any current information the Department of State may have concerning
subject will be appreciated."

-- J. Edgar Hoover memo to State Department, 6/3/60

APPENDIX

Other Alice Assasination Documents

Whether or not the real Oswald or someone using his name stopped
in the city during early October, 1963, a number of additional
documents do reflect the fact that his ALLEGED presence became
somewhat imbedded in the cultural history of the city -- and that
the local population believed that his presence may have been
indicative of the involvement of local political boss George Parr
in the assassination:

*** The first of these documents is a report the FBI received
regarding a number of men who were deer hunting near Alice late
in 1967. One of them apparently claimed that Oswald had visited
the ranch where they were hunting before the assassination. Parr,
the local boss and a longtime supporter of LBJ's, supposedly masterminded
the assassination at this 1963 meeting, according to the allegation
made during the *67 hunting trip. (52)

*** In another report, three days after the assassination,
FBI informant John C. Askew (A-S-K-E-W) called the Bureau from
Pensacola, Florida and told them that he had been a previous resident
of Alice, TX. Askew said that Boss Parr had helped steal the controversial
1948 U.S. Senate election for LBJ and had in the past had at least
two men killed -- the former editor of the Alice newspaper and
the owner of an Alice radio station. He also said that he thought
that Parr could have been involved in helping to plot JFK's demise.
The FBI declined to follow-up on the suggestion to investigate
Parr and the political infrastucture of Alice and of Jim Wells
County after Askew's brother, future Florida Governor Ruben Askew
(at that time a Florida state senator), subsequently told the
Bureau that his brother, John, was an alcoholic. (53)

*** A third document reveals that a Pat Luby told the FBI in
1967 that former Alice District Attorney Sam Burris and the then-current
Alice District Attorney, a man named Lester, were being held at
a local hospital against their will and drugged to prevent them
from telling what they knew about the assassination. Boss Parr
was said to have been paying the doctors. (54)

*** Finally, a man named Ronald Smith told the FBI in 1977
that he had seen a recent press clipping indicating that some
teenagers who were stopped in Waco, Texas, with nearly half a
million dollars in their car said that they had got the money
at a ranch in Alice. Smith also told the FBI that he had heard
through the grapevine while he was living in Odessa, Texas, that
Oswald had spent the first night after returning from Mexico in
Alice. Smith suggested that if the dates on the bills were pre-assassination,
the money could have been somehow related to the assassination.
The FBI did run down this particular theory and determined that
the majority the bills found in the car in 1977 were from either
the 1969 or 1974 series. (55)

Note: The assistance and encouragement of Ian Griggs and John
Armstrong is gratefully acknowledged..

***** An earlier version of this paper appeared in the Spring 1997 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles,
and a subsequent version was presented to the Coalition on Political
Assassinations conference in Washington, DC, in June 1997.

Footnotes

(1) New York Times, November 30, 1963.

(2) AP story appearing in a number of newspapers, including
Dallas Morning News, on 11/28/63.

FBI Record Number 124-10178-10458, Agency File Number 89-67-173,
11/27/63.

(3) *Alice, Texas,* William Weston, The Fourth Decade, September
1997; sources cited include

(15) HSCA copy of WC memo, Record Number 180-10108-10339, Agency
File Number 002962, 03/20/64. (Marina, for her part, during both
major investigations and to this day has steadfastly continued
to insist that her husband simply could not drive -- see, for
example, November, 1988 interview in Ladies' Home Journal.)

(16) WR, p. 736; CE 2121; CE 2459; CE 2460; CE 2532.

(17) WR, p. 736; CE 2456.

(18) CE 2129, p. 3

(19) CIA Record Number 104-10002-10100; Agency File Number
201-289248; 4/17/64.

(29) FBI Record Number 124-10167-10004, Agency File Number
89-43-2479, 12/4/63;

FBI Record Number 124-10018-10295, Agency File Number 62-109060-1422,
12/4/63.

(30) *Budreau's Music and Appliance Store,* William Weston,
The Fourth Decade, July 1996.

(31) Ibid.

(32) October 6, 1997 letter from John Armstrong to William
Weston.

(33) CIA Record Number 104-10002-10012, Agency File Number
201-289248, 5/28/64.

(34) Carol Hewett indicated in the March-April 1997 issue of
Probe that she has identified a third vehicle owned by the Paines
which matches this description. She gave a talk on this topic
at the 1995 COPA conference and is preparing a more in-depth article
for an upcoming issue of Probe.